SPOILERS FOR CALL OF THE NETHERDEEP

One of the central gimmicks in Call of the Netherdeep is that there’s a party of rival adventurers who will dog the PCs’ path throughout the adventure.

It’s a cool gimmick, and the Rivals themselves — Ayo Jabe, Dermot Wurder, Galsariad Ardyth, Irvan Wastewalker, and Maggie Keeneyes — are excellent characters. Not only are they varied and flavorful, they’re also presented to the DM with tight, efficient briefing packets (p. 11-13) that make them easy to grasp as roles to be played.

Unfortunately, the presentation of the rivalry in the adventure can be underwhelming. There are three reasons for this.

First, the primary tool Call of the Netherdeep gives you for managing the Rivals’ relationship with the PCs is their relationship attitude:

• Friendly
• Indifferent
• Hostile

It’s a simple gauge, but its simplicity is not the problem. The problem is that it’s the wrong tool for the job of determining what the Rivals do. Or, more accurately, it’s cripplingly incomplete.

As a gauge, Friendly/Indifferent/Hostile only tells you HOW the Rivals choose to interact with the PCs: Do they help you or kill you?

This unidimensional relationship is flat, repetitive, and ultimately dead ends the Rivals’ role in the campaign: Either literally because the PCs kill them or figuratively because they end up as loyal lapdogs who simply support whatever the PCs decide to do.

Fundamentally:

• I want to kill you.
• I don’t care about you.
• I like you.

is not the description of a Rival.

Second, the adventure frequently attempts to script predetermined interactions with the Rivals. These largely don’t work because (a) predetermined scripts like this rarely work properly and (b) although some effort is made to make these scripts flexible, they nevertheless frequently end up in conflict with the relationship being otherwise pushed by the relationship gauge.

There will be countless examples of this in actual play, but here’s one directly from the book: Early in the campaign, the Rivals — if the relationship gauge is Friendly — offer to join the PCs and work with them on the quest. The book then simply assumes that this never happened because all of the scripted interactions require the Rivals to NOT be working with the PCs.

Third, the adventure struggles with the lack of a clear, actionable agenda for much of its length.

This is a deeper problem with the structure of Call of the Netherdeep that extends beyond the Rivals, but it’s specifically problematic here because a “rival” is someone who competes with you to achieve a common objective; for superiority in a common activity.

This works to a certain extent when the PCs first meet the Rivals, because they are literally racing each other to obtain a prize item in the Emerald Grotto.

But then it stops working.

This is partly because a gauge that only outputs “I want to help you!” or “I want to kill you!” isn’t conducive to competing for a common goal. Partly it’s because the railroaded structure of the campaign breaks it. (You can’t actually race someone if they’re scripted to always show up at the next cutscene.)

Mostly it’s because the stakes of the campaign aren’t really made clear.

For example, at the beginning of Chapter 2, an NPC tells the PCs to go to the city of Bazzoxan because they’ve acquired an artifact from the Calamity and “there is no place in Xhorhas where the memory of the Calamity lingers more strongly than in Bazzoxan.”

But that’s notably not actually a reason to go to Bazzoxan. Just think about the immediate follow-up question from the players:

“And what do we do when we get there?”

If you can’t answer that question, then you don’t actually have a reason to go. Which is why, when the PCs get to Bazzoxan, the book assumes they’ll just kind of wander around aimlessly until they randomly bump into the plot. And the immediate problem here is that, “Go to Bazzoxan and then wander around until you bump into the plot” isn’t something you can have a Rival in, because there’s no actual goal to be achieved.

So if you’re running Call of the Netherdeep (or similar rival groups in other campaigns), what SHOULD you do?

STEP 1: ROLEPLAY TRUTHFULLY, PLAY ACTIVELY

In DMing the Rivals, I would not spend a lot of time trying to follow the scripted events in the book. Focus on tracking the Rivals’ relationship with the PCs and then just roleplaying them truthfully.

Broadly speaking, there are five courses of action that the Rivals are likely be pursuing at any point in the campaign:

• Working in partnership with the PCs.
• Convinced the PCs need help even if the PCs won’t let them, thus following the PCs around.
• Independently trying to figure out how to help Alyxian.
• Concluding that this isn’t any of their business and exiting the campaign to go do other things.
• Seizing the Jewel (and possibly trying to kill the PCs) and taking charge.

One of these modes of action may dominate the entire campaign, or it’s possible that the Rivals will be constantly shifting between modes. It’ll depend on how things play out at the table. Either way, you goal is to freely riff on these modes of action by continually asking, “What would the Rivals do?”

In other words, actively play the Rivals in the same way that your players are actively playing their PCs.

RIVALS IN CHARGE: It’s also possible that the Rivals can end up with the Jewel of Three Prayers, the PCs respect that, and the PCs volunteer to work for them. (This is relatively unlikely without rewriting some stuff early in the campaign, but it’s still a possibility.)

In my opinion, this is actually a far more challenging position to be in as a DM: If the PCs are in the driving seat, reacting to what they’re doing can be almost entirely reflexive and it’s trivial to keep the players in the spotlight. If the Rivals end up in charge, it can be much more difficult to make decisions for them without being biased by your behind-the-scenes knowledge of the campaign. And it’s much more difficult to keep the PCs in the spotlight.

Check out Calling in the Big Guns and Calling in the Little Guys: The situation here is not exactly comparable, but you may find some of the principles there useful. In particular:

• Have the Rivals ask the PCs what they think should be done. (The Rivals may or may not agree, but it’s probably a good idea to have them use the PCs’ ideas frequently.)
• Have the Rivals assign the PCs an important objective to achieve while the Rivals are doing something else. (And try to arrange things so that, at least some of the time, whatever the PCs are doing turns out to actually be the crucial thing.)

STEP 2: DEBATE THE AGENDA

The creative goal, of course, is for the Rivals to actually BE the rivals of the PCs.

The key to achieving this is the Principle of Opposition: Whatever the PCs think is the right course of action? The Rivals have the opposite opinion.

To understand the power of this, let’s consider the end of the campaign. The adventure finally puts its cards on the table and the PCs are given a fairly clear choice: Free the Apotheon, Help the Apotheon, or Kill the Apotheon. (And there are strong arguments for each.)

As for the Rivals?

DEALING WITH THE RIVALS

Rivals who follow the characters into the Heart of Despair behave in one of two ways, depending on their attitude toward the characters:

Friendly or Indifferent Rivals. The rivals allow the characters to deal with Alyxian in whatever manner they see fit, fighting alongside them if need be.

Hostile Rivals. The rivals attack the characters.

They’re stuck on the broken relationship gauge: Loyal lapdogs or furious murders.

But what happens if you instead use the Principle of Opposition:

PC: We have to free him.

Ayo Jabe: We can’t do that! He’s mad! You’ll doom the world!

Or:

PC: We have to help him.

Galsariad: He’s beyond help. Corrupted with power. There’s no option except to exterminate him.

Or:

PC: We have to kill him.

Maggie: But he’s in pain! You can’t just murder him! He deserves to be free!

The relationship gauge tells you HOW the Rivals oppose the PCs’ agenda:

• Hostile? They’re going to go with aggressive negotiations.
• Friendly? It’ll be a debate.
• Indifferent? Heated argument that could go either way.

In practice, the PCs probably won’t be a united front, which will give you the freedom to split up the Rivals’ opinions, too, so that the debate can boil out into a multifaceted argument. In fact, maybe the whole thing fractures apart, with PCs and Rivals both forming new alliances and turning on each other.

The key thing here is that the opposition of the Rivals will force the players/PCs to think about what they believe. It will force them to have an active agenda and an opinion about how best to achieve that agenda. And then they’ll need to DEFEND both.

That process — thinking, forming opinions, defending those opinions — will make the players invest deeply in the campaign.

Of course, the Rivals don’t need to be completely intransigent pains-in-the-butt at every single moment. Sometimes they’ll align with the PCs (because they’re friends or as grudging enemies towards a common goal). And sometimes the PCs should be able to change their minds.

(You may be surprised when the Rivals also start changing the players’ minds. Play fair in the battlefield of ideas and your players will engage with those ideas. And with those characters.)

Go to Part 2: Setting the Agenda

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 26C: A Disposition of Treasure

To kill the time, Elestra grabbed some newssheets and started asking around about recent events in the city. After spending several days in Ghul’s Labyrinth, she was still feeling a little disconnected.

On the 12^th, a man named Doonhin – a salt merchant in the South Market – was accused of killing his wife by throwing her off the Stormwrought Campanile. Doonhin has been pleading his innocence, claiming to have been magically charmed by a sorcerer.

On the 13^th, there had been another Flayed Man killing. This one had taken place in the Guildsman’s District, suggesting that the killer might be moving out of the Warrens.

And only a few hours earlier, around noon, the Rat’s Nest – a pub on Tavern Row – had been vandalized.

In Smart Prep, I discuss the use of background events: a timeline of events that don’t directly involve or affect the PCs, but which are nevertheless a part of the world they live in. These events can manifest themselves as:

• newspaper headlines
• random rumors
• topics of casual conversation
• incidental details contextualizing revelations

And so forth.

They may have some non-direct but practical function – foreshadowing, exposition, etc. – but they’re often just about the world existing. Because in a real, living, breathing world, of course, things happen all the time that aren’t about you.

An example I like to use is a campaign set in New York city during World War II. The PCs aren’t soldiers; they aren’t going to the front lines. But the newspapers are going to be filled with D-Day and Saipan the 1944 election. That’s the type of stuff (along with local news and gossip) that will appear in your list of background events.

Like World War II, many background events will persist – evolving and developing over time. They can be a little like short stories seen at a great distance. Depending on the campaign, I’ll usually try to have a few of these “short stories” running at any given time, but I’ll also make sure to mix in a few completely random tidbits to flesh things out. In the example above, the Tavern Row vandalism is the beginning of a new event sequence, but the murder(?) at the Stormwrought Campanile is a one-off.

In a fluid campaign – particularly a sandbox – you may find that background events sometimes become foreground scenarios (and vice versa). There tend to be two common forms of this.

First, the PCs get involved. This may be the result of a player getting curious: they hear about a background event and think, “That sounds interesting,” and start nosing around. That might go nowhere or it might lead to the background event suddenly being very much an active part of the campaign.

This can also happen when the GM uses the background event as an active tool to respond to PC actions. The events are designed to be flexible tools – to be used in conversations as background details, etc.

For example, you’ve got a series of background events running about Triad attacks in Shanghai. The PCs need some hired muscle and they start asking around about who they can hire. You don’t have anything prepped for that, so you reach for the Triads that you know are part of the setting. The Triads are willing to help the PCs, but they’re going to need a favor in return. What type of favor? Well, maybe they’d like to retaliate against the rival Triad who bombed a restaurant under their protection (as previously detailed in a background event).

Now the background events aren’t in the background at all.

In the other direction, scenario hooks that the PCs choose to ignore can quite naturally transition into short background event sequences. The Flayed Man killings, above, are actually an example of this: the players in the campaign just kind of ignored the related hook and the timeline of Flayed Man killings I’d jotted down in my scenario outline simply played out.

(The scenario itself, in this case, was never fully prepped: The PCs didn’t follow that lead, so I didn’t do the prep.)

Some people get really antsy about this, declaring it “railroading” if, for example, the Flayed Man killings keep happening because the killer hasn’t been caught yet. But that’s not the case. As I’ve mentioned before, choices have meaningful consequences is the opposite of railroading (in which you choices are negated).

By the same token, it may be useful to remember that the function of background events is to demonstrate that the world doesn’t revolve around the PCs: Every job they turn down shouldn’t automatically end in utter disaster. It’s probably more likely, in fact, that the person trying to hire them finds somebody else to do the job (and do it successfully).

Letting action flow offscreen and into the background events is a great way to make the players feel as if they’re really living in the world and that their actions have meaningful and far-reaching consequences that persist even when they can’t see it. And giving players the freedom to engage with background events and make them suddenly the focus of the game is a great way to make the world feel huge and real; as if the PCs could go anywhere or open any door and find a living, breathing world waiting for them.

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 26D – Running the Campaign: Counterintelligence Vectors
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 26C: THE RIDDLE OF ILTUMAR

August 24th, 2008
The 14th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

THE KING’S ROAD

They headed back to the Ghostly Minstrel. In the lobby, they met Elestra on her way out, quickly filled her in on the details of the deal they had made, and gave her the platinum she was due.

“Where are you going now?” Tee asked.

“I’m just going out to the listen to the Spirit of the City,” Elestra said. “See what I can find out. Maybe ask around about the Brotherhood.”

“I don’t think you should,” Tee said. “I don’t want us drawing the kind of attention that asking those type of questions might bring. I don’t want to wake up with Wuntad in my room. I already did that with the Balacazars and I didn’t like it.”

“Okay,” Elestra said. “That’s probably true.”

While they were discussing their options, they were joined by the others. Ranthir returned to an idea that had occurred to them during the “meeting of all things” on the 11^th – that the prophecy referring to the “street of kings” could be a reference to King’s Road in the Nobles’ Quarter.

Feeling that they otherwise had a dearth of solid leads – and reflecting on the fact that Elestra had probably had a very close encounter with certain death when she had attempted to follow a similar lead on Brandywine Street by herself – they decided to head up to King’s Road together.

When they arrived, however, they realized they really had no idea what they were looking for.  The prophecy said: Arrived too late, the act has been done. The wind was against them, letters intercepted on their way. The conspirators were fourteen of a party. By the street of kings shall these enterprises by undertaken.

“Arrived too late?” Elestra said. “Does that mean we already missed it?”

Tee frowned. “Maybe. But even if we haven’t, it sounds like this is something that’s going to happen here. So unless we just happen to be here at the right time, I’m not sure what we’re going to see.”

In the Nobles’ Quarter, there were two major thoroughfares running away from the Dalenguard – Crown Street to the south and King’s Road to the north. Near the Dalenguard, King’s Road was filled with a variety of expensive shops, restaurants, and other storefronts dedicated to serving the rich and decadent tastes of the major merchant houses: Moleshan’s, The Jewel, Buckingham’s, The Dry Easel, and the like.

Further to the north, however, King’s Road ran past a number of merchant estates maintained by the major merchant house – Dallimothan, Nagel, and Rau – along with a number of other mansions, including Castle Shard.

Their particular attention was drawn to the Crown Theater – far enough to the north not to be lost in the sea of businesses near the Dalenguard, yet something more than enigmatic, luxurious, and inaccessible estate.

Making inquiries at the theater’s box office, they learned that the current production was The Merchant Warlord – a lavish opera telling the historical tale of Nulara Aretari, the warlord who married into the Aretari merchant family and served as the original First Commander of the nascent Mercenary Army during the Battle of Salesia, helping to create the modern nation of Arathia. Tickets were 25 gold crowns, a staggering sum that left Tee gaping.

A few minutes after they left the Crown Theater, the group was approached by a pair of city guardsmen. Upon reflection, they realized that they looked rather out of place among the pervading opulence of the Nobles’ Quarter, and that wandering openly up and down the length of King’s Road had probably attracted the wrong sorts of attention.

Tee flirtatiously talked the guards off them – weaving some tale about wanting to see a show at the Crown Theater – but the group decided that, since they didn’t seem to be accomplishing anything any way, it was probably time for them to leave. They returned to Midtown and then split up to go their separate ways.

TOR’S MORNING

Tor returned to the Bull and Bear Armory, where he found Iltumar manning the shop. After exchanging a few pleasantries, he asked Iltumar if Hirus was about.

“He’s upstairs tending to Sholum,” Iltumar said. “I’ll go get him. Can you keep an eye on things?”

Before Tor really had a chance to respond, Iltumar had bounded through the door in the back of the shop. Tor could hear him running up the stairs.

The shop was empty when Iltumar left, but a few moments later a young, blond-haired woman came in through the door. Tor suddenly felt himself to be bearing a responsibility he wasn’t sure how to discharge. He awkwardly explained to the woman that the shopkeep had just stepped out, but would be back in just a moment.

The woman nodded and began casually perusing the various weapons hanging along one wall. Tor kept a wary eye on her, but she didn’t seem to be doing anything suspicious. A few minutes later, Hirus and Iltumar came downstairs.

Iltumar moved to assist the woman who had been waiting, while Tor and Hirus stepped outside to have a private word. Tor ascertained that Iltumar had duties around the shop until midday, but after that would be free. Tor offered to take Iltumar riding with him after he’d finished his duties, if that would be all right with Hirus.

Hirus smiled. He thought that Iltumar would like that a great deal. Tor told him to let Iltumar know, and that he would be back at noon to pick him up.

Hirus went back into the Bull and Bear. Tor grabbed a carriage at the mouth of Delver’s Square and rode it to the alley off Yarrow Street where they had met with the enigmatic information broker known as Shim. Within mere moments of walking down the alley, he was rewarded with the sight of Shim slipping between the cracks of the wall.

“Master Tor,” Shim said with the sound of an unseen smile in his voice. “A pleasure to see you again. What can I help you with?”

For a minimal fee, Tor arranged for one of Shim’s men – whoever they might be – to keep an eye on him for the next few hours.

“You want me to keep an eye on… you?” Shim said, slightly bemused.

“That’s right,” Tor said. Although he didn’t tell Shim his exact suspicions, he suspected that the Brotherhood might be keeping Iltumar under observation. If they were, he wanted to know about it.

Leaving Shim’s alley, Tor returned to the Bull and Bear. Iltumar was waiting for him with an excited grin on his face.

“Have you ever jousted before?” Tor asked him as they stepped back out into the square.

Iltumar shook his head.

“Do you have a horse?”

Iltumar shook his head.

“Have you ever ridden before?”

Iltumar shook his head.

“Okay,” Tor said. “Let’s start by getting you a horse.”

They went to the stables behind the Ghostly Minstrel. Tor said hello to Blue and patted him on the nose, and then made some quick arrangements to rent a horse for Iltumar.

As they rode north along Lower God Row – Tor easing into the comfortable familiarity of the saddle and Iltumar awkwardly trying to stay on his mount – Tor gently tried to broach Iltumar’s thoughts.

“How have you been?”

Iltumar shrugged.

“Hirus has been worried about you.”

Iltumar’s whole body tightened. “Is that why you asked me to ride with you?”

Tor backed off. Iltumar obviously wasn’t going to respond to direct inquiries about whatever was going on, so he would just have to reach out and leave his hand there in the hope that Iltumar would take it.

They rode out of the city through the North Gate and spent a little over three hours just riding through the open prairies around the city. Tor slowly coached the lad into a greater sense of confidence in the saddle, all the while trying to convince him – without saying as much – that, if Iltumar wanted adventure, all he had to do was ask.

When they were done, Tor returned to the Bull and Bear with a very sore – but very happy – Iltumar. He made arrangements, if Iltumar would like, to meet him again in a couple of days.

Once Iltumar had said his farewells, Tor rode Blue back to Shim’s alley.

“You were right,” Shim said. “You were followed.”

“By who?”

“A blond woman dressed in the robes of an Imperial priestess.”

“An Imperial priestess?” Tor frowned. “Where did she go?”

“She followed you to North Gate and then waited in the area until you returned. Then she trailed you back to Delver’s Square. After you left the kid, she hung around outside the Bull and Bear.”

Tor paid Shim and left.

ELESTRA’S MORNING

Elestra decided that she wanted to ask around town about the Brotherhood after all. “I’ll just be careful,” she said to herself.

And she was. Poking her nose into all the right places and asking discreet questions, she learned that an organization calling itself the Brotherhood of Ptolus was quietly recruiting young men and women with idealistic-sounding jingo. She ran into a couple of walls, but eventually made contact with Jamill – a member of the Brotherhood with strange tattoos, numerous scars, long black hair, and the sunken eyes of a shivvel addict.

Elestra voiced interest in joining the Brotherhood, but Jamill wasn’t willing to talk about it until they were in “a more private place”. They agreed to meet at a tavern called the Onyx Spider on Tavern Row at two o’clock.

To kill the time, Elestra grabbed some newssheets and started asking around about recent events in the city. After spending several days in Ghul’s Labyrinth, she was still feeling a little disconnected.

On the 12^th, a man named Doonhin – a salt merchant in the South Market – was accused of killing his wife by throwing her off the Stormwrought Campanile (a freestanding belltower in the Temple District that’s said to be a sanctuary from bad omens, ill luck, storms, and evil magic). Doonhin has been pleading his innocence, claiming to have been magically charmed by a sorcerer.

On the 13^th, there had been another Flayed Man killing. This one had taken place in the Guildsman’s District, suggesting that the killer might be moving out of the Warrens.

And only a few hours earlier, around noon, the Rat’s Nest – a pub on Tavern Row – had been vandalized.

DOMINIC’S MORNING

Dominic spent the morning shopping. He bought Tee a bouquet of flowers and a charming necklace for her birthday, delivering them to her room at the Ghostly Minstrel. The gifts brought a huge smile to Tee’s face, and she thanked him profusely.

Dominic also stopped by Myraeth’s Oddities and bought a scroll describing a magical ritual which could be used to deliver short messages over long distances. He hoped that Ranthir might be able to learn the ritual and improve the group’s ability to communicate during times of separation. After delivering Tee’s birthday presents, he crossed the hall and knocked on Ranthir’s door.

“I have a present for you, Ranthir!”

Ranthir quirked an eyebrow. “You know it’s not my birthday, right?”

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: Background to Foreground – Campaign Journal: Session 26D
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Go to Part 1

IN THE NOVELS

From 1994-2004, the Yawning Portal also appeared in a number of tie-in novels and short stories (with one additional appearance in 2009). Here’s a brief round-up of unique facts about the inn established in these novels. As stories, of course, these include a number of small descriptive details.

WATERDEEP (Troy Denning, aka Richard Awlinson, 1989)

• “Yawning Portal” not only refers to the well; it’s also a “tongue-in-cheek reference to the tendency of those who indulged in the tavern’s fare to tell tall tales.”
• Durnan’s office has a couch.

Note: This is a novelization of the events from FRE3 Waterdeep. Or vice versa, with both being released more or less simultaneously and shared passages of text.

ELFSONG (Elaine Cunningham, 1994)

• There is a secret tunnel between Blackstaff Tower and a “secret backroom” at the Yawning Portal which is hidden behind the storeroom. (It’s one of what are apparently a network of such tunnels, including another that runs to Piergeiron’s Palace. The secret room is used for meetings between certain Lords of Waterdeep (including Khelben, Laeral, Mirt, Kitten (Nymara Scheiron), and Brian the Swordmaster).
• There are live musical performances in the taproom, including by the Masked Minstrel.

REALMS OF THE UNDERDARK (“A Slow Day in Skullport,” Ed Greenwood, 1996)

• There are multiple wine cellars in the Yawning Portal, of which one is the “deepest” and home to bottles covered with “gray, furry dust.” It also contains various trophies from Durnan’s swordswinging days, including a lich’s periapt, a pair of tusks from a giant orc, and the “swords of fallen foes” (many of which gleam with enchantments). Some of the stone pillars within this cellar have secret vaults concealed within them, including Durnan’s old adventuring sword and a magic ring.
• These lower chambers (and possibly the entire inn?) are warded against teleportation (and possibly other magic).
• Belaerd, a black licorice whisky from Sheirtalar, is among the Portal’s offerings.
• Durnan is often known to sing ancient battle ballads in the taproom.
• There are enchanted, floating baskets that are used to move drinks and other supplies around the Yawning Portal.

REALMS OF THE ARCANE (“The Grotto of Dreams,” Mark Anthony, 1997)

• The taproom well is called the “Well of Entry.”

THORNHOLD (Elaine Cunningham, 1998)

• The tunnel connected to the Wet Well (which is here a hole in the floor covered by a board) leads more directly to Skullport.

Note: It’s possible that the “secret door” in Skullport (1999) was attempting to reference this passage from the 1998 novel. But the details are sufficiently different, that I don’t think so.

ELMINSTER IN HELL (Ed Greenwood, 2001)

• Durnan keeps a crossbow behind the bar.

WINDWALKER (Elaine Cunningham, 2003)

• There is a secret back door which is magically concealed using a powder gifted to Durnan by Khelben Arunsun and probably leads directly into the inn’s stables. (After closing the door, you rub the powder into the gap around the door and it vanishes.)

REALMS OF THE DRAGONS (“The Keeper of Secrets,” Ed Greenwood, 2004)

• The Yawning Portal has a well-oiled back door which “swings wildly” in Mirt’s wake and leads into the kitchen.
• There’s a trapdoor in the taproom with a spell on it that only lets Durnan open it. The chute inside leads down into “unseen depths” and Durnan dumps corpses down it. “Something that slobbered” waits their arrival.
• Orders are not “bawled.” (You get one warning and then you get ejected.)
• The taproom is lit by candle wheels hung overhead.
• You might see a lance-and-lion game board set up on the smooth-polished bar. (Mirt often plays with Durnan.)
• Black Sail is an ale on tap.
• Durnan keeps a “baldric heavy with warblades” on a peg on the wall behind the bar.

DOWNSHADOW (Erik Scott Deble, 2009)

This novel takes place in 1479 DR.

• The climb from the bottom to the top of the well is described as “a bow shot—a long hard climb.”
• There’s a harness at the end of the rope in the well.

ENDLESS QUEST: TO CATCH A THIEF (Matt Forbeck, 2018)

The Yawning Portal briefly appears in this choose-your-own-adventure book, but contains no detailed description of the tavern. (Although the character is told that there’s a secret route to Skullport there.)

LATER EXPEDITIONS TO UNDERMOUNTAIN

The Yawning Portal next appears in the 3^rd Edition City of Splendors (2004), still listed as building C48 (inn, Class C, 3 floors). The entry describing the inn is quite brief, but does state:

Yawning Portal: Built atop the ruins of Halaster’s Hold, the Yawning portal inn (C48) contains the primary entrance to Undermountain, a large well that drops down into Undermountain’s first dungeon level (UM L1). Secondary entrances are found in the inn as well, including a link to the inn’s less well known “wet” well and a passage leading out of the Yawning Portal’s cellars.

There is also an NPC named Adama Miiralin, who’s a regular at the Yawning Portal. I am not attempting a survey of all the various patrons of the Portal over the years, but Adama is notable because he keeps a record of everyone entering Undermountain.

Expedition to Undermountain (2007) includes additional details on the Yawning Portal, including what I believe is the first reference to the city “exiling the worst of its criminals to the depths of Undermountain” through the Well of Entry.

• The Yawning Portal is “built of stone, with a slate roof and an upper floor of guest rooms.” The inn seems to have lost a floor in this description, but later adds one instead by saying “there are three floors of guest rooms.”
• The tavern’s sign reads “The Yawning Portal,” with the words deeply carved into a silvery piece of weathered wood suspended from two short loops of black chain suspended from a black-painted iron pole above the front door.

The front door leads directly into the common room where:

• The floor is “well worn boards.”
• Word paneling adorns the walls, with an elbow rail and rich blue tapestries hung at intervals.
• The furniture is made from heavy, stout wood.
• Some of the tables have been built around the wooden pillars that hold up the ceiling and can’t be moved.
• The Well of Entry is now referred to as the “Entry Well.”
• Those who would journey into Undermountain are referred to as “The Called” and there are often hopefuls looking to join or form adventuring groups in the Yawning Portal.
• The crossbow below the bar is now a double crossbow, loaded with sleep arrows, and has been joined by a rod of flame extinguishing and a +2 seeking and returning handaxe (although Durnan often just “hurls a metal tankard when most brawls break out”).
• Durnan will dose drinks with sleeping powder to take care of rowdy drunks.

The Entry Well:

• “[T]apers as it descends, from 40 feet across at the top to 30 feet across at the bottom.”
• 200 feet deep. (Although this is possibly only the length of the rope, in which case its depth does not appear to be given. In any case, the depth returns to 140 feet in all future references.)
• The rope has a bucket attached to the end of it.
• A pulley system allows Durnan to raise or lower the bucket; there’s also a release lever that will drop the rope to the bottom of the well.

The upper floors are reached by “steep wooden stairs opening off the common room.” In winter, these rooms are heated by barrels filled with fireplace-heated stones that are placed at the end of every floor’s central hall.

Expedition to Undermountain also includes a good deal of detailed information about particular patrons and the fourteen live-in staff members. Some of these staff members sleep in the stables, while others take unoccupied guest rooms on the third floor (or relocate to cots in the cellar if the inn is full). Durnan’s family also live in rooms on the top floor.

Our next major expedition to Undermountain is Halls of Undermountain (2012), a 4^th Edition adventure which takes place in 1479 DR. The new or altered details for the Yawning Portal here are:

• “[T]hree upper floors of guest rooms…” (This is almost certainly just a slip-up, but it’s been a hundred years so you could certainly imagine that at some point Durnan added an extra floor.)
• The inn is now run by Durnan the Sixth, descendant of the original Durnan.
• The entrance/exit cost for the Entry Well is now 10 gp. (Inflation will kill you. Literally.)
• No healing or help is provided to returning adventurers, but Durnan will send a runner to fetch a cleric for no extra charge.
• The Wet Well is now referred to as the Wet Way. It’s located in the cellar instead of a backroom, where a curtained archway hides the well. The well descends uninterrupted to a cistern, but a separate passage leads up from the cistern into Undermountain. (Durnan VI has no idea the Wet Way connects to Undermountain.)
• At least some of the Yawning Portal’s rooms are suites.

There is another goodly selection of Yawning Portal regulars detailed here.

Also in the 4^th Edition era, the 2010 D&D Encounters organized play adventure Halaster’s Lost Apprentice also took the players to the Yawning Portal:

• The taproom has glass windows.
• The backdoor is (a) visible from the taproom and (b) leads into the alley behind the Yawning Portal.
• This alley, inexplicably, has a canal running down the middle of it. (Waterdeep doesn’t have canals. Although maybe it does now: The 4^th Edition-era map of Waterdeep infamously forgot to turn on some layers before exporting, resulting in all the streets and Castle Waterdeep disappearing.)

5TH EDITION ERA

The Yawning Portal does not appear in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, making its debut in 5^th Edition as the framing device in Tales from the Yawning Portal (2017).

• It turns out the original Durnan went into Undermountain in the late 14^th century. When he returned a hundred years later, he paid off Durnan VI (and apparently kicked him and his family out of the inn).
• There are balconies on the second and third floors of the tavern that overlook the Entry Well.
• The entrance/exit fee has been reduced back to 1 gp.
• There is a sizable list of curios displayed in the taproom (p. 6), which I won’t reproduce here.

The inn next shows up in the opening scene of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (2018):

• “The place is a stone building with a slate roof and several chimneys.”
• “Most of the ground floor is taken up by the tavern’s common room.” (This doesn’t explicitly eliminate the numerous backrooms, private rooms, secret rooms, and guest rooms that have previously been found on the first floor, but it seems to have had that effect on subsequent depictions of the Yawning Portal.)
• The candle wheels have been replaced with iron lanterns hanging from the ceiling and candles on the tables.
• There’s an incredibly cool fireplace next to the bar which looks like the ceiling-high head of a demon with flames burning in its mouth.

Dungeon of the Mad Mage (2018) expands on this description, with a particular focus on the entrance to Undermountain itself:

• It takes 10 rounds to descend the Well if you’re being winched down.
• The walls of the Well are “crumbly, but have abundant handholds and footholds.”

The other entrances to Undermountain from the Yawning Portal are conspicuously absent, particularly given that this book is the first to ostensibly present the dungeon in its entirety (albeit at a fraction of its former size).

Our very last stop here is DDAL08-00 Once In Waterdeep, a D&D Adventurers League adventure from 2018. It notably includes a map of the inn (more on that below), but also:

• Asserts that the Well is not the foundation of Halaster’s old tower, but rather “the tip of a sunken stone tower.”
• A stage has been constructed by a travelling theater company at one end of the common room, draped with curtains. (This is presumably temporary, but might be something that happens on a not infrequent basis.)
• Durnan has a Welcomer’s Brew that gives 5 temporary hit points.
• One of Waterdeep’s “signature double-decker dray carriages” smashes through the front wall.

Next: The Maps

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 26B: A Disposition of Treasure

There were three main problems to overcome: The sheer weight of the arcane equipment and precious metals. The pit of chaos warping the hallway. And the difficulty of lifting the material out of the basement here at Greyson House.

Out of everything, the “Drill of the Banewarrens” was going to prove the most difficult: Everything else could be mostly parceled up into smaller bundles, but the drill was both bulky and weighed several thousand pounds all by itself.

“Could we just sell the location of the drill to somebody?” Elestra asked.

“Like House Erthuo?” Tee said. “I doubt they’d be all that interested considering what just happened.”

“How can you make encumbrance fun?”

You can’t.

But you also can’t make hit points fun, and for much the same reason.

Hit points are just a number: It goes up. It goes down. At a certain value you might suffer penalties. At another you fall unconscious.

So, too, with encumbrance: The number goes up. The number goes down. At a certain value you suffer penalties. At another you can’t carry any more.

Hit points and encumbrance are simple gauges, and you can’t make them “fun” for the same reason you can’t make the gas gauge on your car fun.

But driving a car? That can be fun. And so is combat in D&D and a lot of other roleplaying games that use hit points.

The gauge isn’t fun. It’s just a gauge. But the system in which that gauge is used – for which, in fact, that gauge may be an essential part – can be all kinds of fun.

So the better question is:

“Why do we want to track encumbrance?”

Encumbrance is often most useful in expedition-based play: You put together the resources for an expedition, then expend those resources on the expedition to maximize your returns.

Encumbrance is, in large part, a budget. Without a budget, the solution is always “bring everything,” which is kind of like playing 52-card draw poker: Without limited resources, there is no challenge.

(Tangentially, one interesting facet of such play in 1974 D&D, because it had a system for resolving characters fleeing from combat, is jettisoning equipment in order to pick up speed in flight-pursuit situations. It became a unique way for bulk resource management to impact combat-based play.)

This kind of gameplay does become obfuscated if the encumbrance system is unwieldy and difficult or fiddly to use. (Imagine if hit points, for example, could only be tracked by keeping an exhaustive list of forty or fifty different individual entries on your character sheet. Combat would almost certainly become a slog.) Unfortunately, a lot of encumbrance systems are unwieldy and difficult to use, with the result that many groups simply ignore it (either decisively or by default through “close enough” fudging).

What you want, of course, is an encumbrance system that’s easy to use so that encumbrance-based play will effortlessly integrate into your play. Correctly designed slot-based systems, like Encumbrance By Stone, for example, can make tracking nitty gritty encumbrance as easy as writing down your equipment list.

THE OTHER HALF OF THE EXPEDITION

Prepping the resource pool for an expedition and then expending those resources efficiently in order to maximize your success is the front half of an adventure.

The other half of the adventure is returning home with what you’ve gained, which, in the case of D&D, is usually treasure.

We’ve talked about this a bit before, but creating bulky, difficult-to-transport treasure (and/or putting it in places where it’s difficult to extract it) can create its own unique challenges. We’ve seen the players here come up with a creative solution for disposing of the orrery, and now they’re being challenged once again with the Drill of the Banewarrens and some of the other treasure.

(And this stuff is all just a few hundred feet under a major city. Stick it in the middle of a jungle and watch what happens!)

“But, Justin, challenge isn’t really a big focus for my group! We’re much more interested in narrative, storytelling, and roleplaying!”

Drama is born of adversity.

And I don’t mean that you’re wrong or that you should value challenge-based gameplay more, I mean that in expedition-type stories encumbrance-based challenges are a fundamental part of the drama you’re looking for. (Look at, say, Indiana Jones trying to get the Ark of the Covenant out of Egypt.)

For example, a scene in which the players are roleplaying through the crushing guilt their characters are feeling because their decisions resulted in the deaths of innocent people that they feel responsible for? Grappling with the difficult dilemmas created by balancing expediency of liquidating their treasure against the responsibility of who’s benefiting from that treasure? This stuff is pure gold for dramatic play!

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 26C – Running the Campaign: Running With Background Events
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index